WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO YOUR YOUNGER SELF?
The Reach Foundation
SYNOPSIS
If you had your time again, what would you tell your younger self? The negative voices that plague our minds and hearts can be relentless, especially as a young person trying to navigate life’s challenges. The Reach Foundation has been changing the mental health game for over 30 years, by giving young people the skills, language and the space to build resilience and express themselves authentically. The Annual Round For Reach Campaign, in partnership with Melbourne Football Club returned to the MCG in 2023 to both honour the legacy left behind by the late Jim Stynes, and raise vital funds that will help Reach continue their important work.
PROBLEM
The complex experiences that all young people face during those early teenage and young adolescent years are universal. Without having the right emotional toolkit to respond to these experiences, only contributes to a young person’s limiting beliefs. In Australia, 99% of mental health funding goes towards crisis and intervention, but only 1% of funding goes towards prevention. Without this support, the Reach Foundation is unable to get in front of young people from an early age and set them up for stronger mental health outcomes in the future. While crisis and intervention measures are crucial in addressing immediate needs, prevention is key to making a significant impact on the mental health crisis.
EXECUTION
With a turnaround time of roughly 3 weeks, we were tasked to produce all assets from concept development to final delivery, for online, TVC, radio, out of home & print media. Challenge Accepted!
We demonstrated the universal experience of being a young person, by expressing some of the most common limiting beliefs we endure during those early years of self discovery. The voices of children were dubbed over our adult participants, to suggest these negative thoughts and feelings were coming from their inner child.
We then gave each participant an opportunity to speak to their younger self and deliver positive affirmations in a similar way that Reach Facilitators do for their young people, to build them up so that they can thrive. This would speak to the fact that Reach must continue to get in front of young people early on in life, before things foster into negative thought patterns or mental health issues. Our key messages were delivered through the voices of Reach Facilitators and Melbourne Football Club and driven home by our call to action to get behind Reach and support.
